Housewarming of the Past
by Chrys-DASL
Summary: When Thora first gets married, her and her husband decide to break tradition and host a housewarming party to finish furnishing their new house. How does that turn out for her? For my 10x10 Challenge/NaNo 2018


Thora (10): Major event/holiday (2)

 _Housewarming of the Past_

Things have changed so much now in how people do things, but when I was growing up, we did things in a particular way. After marrying my husband, he took me to a plot of land where he'd had a house built. We'd never spent the night together. We got married at the church, then we went to our separate houses for a few days while he put the finishing touches on the house. It was this house, and believe me, it looked nothing like this.

When I got here, we had nothing. We were newly married and hadn't thought of anything other than spending our lives together. We didn't know much about anything really, so I thought things would fall in together automatically, but that simply wasn't the case! I got here and had a roof over my head, and the walls were up, and the floor was polished to perfection. But the only furniture was that built-in buffet and the appliances in the kitchen, and even those were worn and used (I think he got them from his uncle when he decided to move to Florida, but that's another story). We had nothing!

So that first day, I had to ask your grandfather how much money we had to buy a bed. Why he'd spent everything on the house! The plot of land took all of his first paycheck, and the materials for the house took the next two. He spent so much of his time building the house that he lost his job, so he had no money left. We spent it all on my wedding dress and the marriage license.

I thought about calling my mother, but back then, you weren't really your parents' problem anymore once you got married. You couldn't just move back in with Mommy and Daddy when things got tough. Oh no, you made do. So I walked into town and went by the grocery store. I used fifty cents to buy a bag of flour and some other things—I can't remember anymore—then I used this to give me a reason to be at the store. I went behind it and found some pallets and some old grain bags. I went next door to a lady's house and called my husband, who was waiting at the general store near his parents' house because they didn't have a phone. He then brought the truck over, and we loaded those things up. Using leftover roofing nails and old newspaper, we made ourselves a little bed.

I got a job as a seamstress working with a local woman, and he went back to work wherever that was—it's been so long, and that place has been gone since before your daddy was born. We made money and bought things little by little, just doing whatever we could. We had to make the house look nice because we wanted to have a housewarming party. Now we'd gotten some wedding gifts, some practical things that we needed for different things—I got a canning set from my grandmother, a quilt from some aunts of his, and a cross-stitch picture to hang on the wall—but we still needed a lot of other things.

So once the house was respectable, we acted like the house was brand new! I hand-wrote letters to invite everyone we knew to our house for a housewarming party. This happens a lot now days, but back then it wasn't very common. In fact, some people looked down on us for even doing such a thing, so those people didn't show up. Other people came for the party. A few members of the church band played music, and we did a potluck thing for all the food.

It was a good time for everyone, and that's how we furnished the house the rest of the way. People gave us furniture, and his mother provided a crib, not that your father was born for several more years. She was pushing us to have children, but many in-laws do. Your mother should be happy I was never one of those grandmothers—I love all three of you dearly, and I love your cousins as well, but I was in no hurry to have children and I didn't expect her to be either. Having a family is a lot of work, as is having a household. The prep work that went into throwing that party was immense!

For starters, I didn't know how to cook very much party food. I knew how to make a home-cooked dinner for my family, but I didn't know the least little thing about finger foods. I had to have my mother and some church ladies teach me, which was embarrassing. I had to save face by learning fast. My reputation depended on it, but I was lucky. I love being in the kitchen—still do! So that part was taken care of after a few Sunday afternoon picnics.

But I had to do what I could with what we had. We had to build a proper bed with proper fittings, and we had to do our best to get decent-looking furniture. We told people we needed a couch that matched our antique coffee table, but we found that broken old thing on the side of a dirt road. Someone lost it while moving in the winter, so it had extensive damage, but your grandfather fixed it. I wish you could've met him. He was the greatest craftsman in the entire state, maybe the whole country! Why do you think he became a handyman? It wasn't because the work was easy, oh no! It was because he was good at it.

Anyway, I had to keep the place clean, which meant learning to garden. Your grandfather was never a landscaper, so I had to get the land ready from the start. We were given seeds and saplings to plant later, but I'm the one who got things started. I did okay considering how little I had to work with. I've actually won awards from my roses, well until your father and his siblings came along and destroyed my hard work. Why do you think your father knows how to keep a good yard? I had to teach him, not your grandfather—me!

But you guys probably don't care much about a housewarming party. You're all so young that it's not really in your thoughts, plus things aren't the same anymore. Even your parents had to get an apartment first, and it took serious budgeting to buy the house you live in. Houses aren't so cheap anymore, not that they were back then either. Times have changed so much since then, but this was a big deal back then. You'll realize one day when you remember this story and remember your old grandma! We did a special thing, a groundbreaking thing. It was beautiful, and I wish I had pictures from that day. Cameras were so hard to come by back then, so no one had one at the party. You'll just have to trust me that it was THE social event that week, maybe even that month, and we were at the center of it.

~End

A/N: I figured I'd take the slice of life route on this piece, my seventh of my 10x10 challenge. I hope you guys liked it, and if you'd like to participate, head over to my profile to learn more about the challenge. Keep in mind that while I'm doing it in a month, you can take however long you need. Let me know if you're participating so I can check out your responses.


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